Pardon While I Feast On Their Tears

There’s an old song Sammy Davis Jr. sung, which was the theme song for a 70’s TV show called “Baretta.*” It’s called “Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow.”

Don’t go to bed with a price on your head
Don’t do it.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
Don’t do it.

Hillary Clinton broke all the rules. She knew she was breaking the rules. She didn’t care. As a member of House Clinton she had grown so accustomed to getting away with it that just one more crime/one more time wasn’t a big deal to her.

The blame for Clinton’s current precarious situation starts with Clinton herself: her paranoid instincts, her matter-of-fact self-dealing and her complete disregard for rules and obligations.

But like all criminals, the random elements of chance plus the unknown caught up with her. The FBI could not ignore the mountain of evidence piling up against her. No amount of cover from the White House, and political pressure from the Department of Justice could dam up the flood as investigators who do this for their career had to go to bed at night without dreaming of quitting the next morning.

The new investigative effort, disclosed by FBI Director James Comey on Friday, shows a bureau at times in sharp internal disagreement over matters related to the Clintons, and how to handle those matters fairly and carefully in the middle of a national election campaign. Even as the probe of Mrs. Clinton’s email use wound down in July, internal disagreements within the bureau and the Justice Department surrounding the Clintons’ family philanthropy heated up, according to people familiar with the matter.

You see, the FBI had already seen Abedin/Weiner’s laptop. They already knew what was on it, because they were looking for child pornography. This was the unknown in Clinton’s “I got away with it” scheme. Clinton’s Number One, her lifetime “body woman” who basically swore a personal oath of loyalty to Her Lady, was compromised by a deeply troubled husband’s compulsive sexting.

In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton’s home that had been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.

At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department’s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.

The investigators only needed a warrant to search for what they knew was there: Tens of thousands of bullets that lead to smoking guns which any prosecutor would instantly know directly contradicts Comey’s recommendation to the DOJ and his testimony before Congress. The evidence is definitely there. This is why Comey notified Congress.

Clinton did this to herself, like all criminals who do one more crime, knowing that they’ve gotten away with it every other time. All the systemic, casual corruption, the planned circles within circles of loyalty and paranoia, the planning and careful opposition research on preferred GOP candidates and her Democratic contender Bernie Sanders, amounted to nothing because of Anthony Weiner’s lurid texts to a fifteen-year-old.

Her supporters will claim that none of this is relevant, because Donald Trump is going to start a nuclear war. She even remade the famous 1964 “Daisy” ad. I think Trump is far too blasé about nukes, but even Kim Jong Un is not insane enough to pop one anywhere populated on Planet Earth. The nuke argument, coming from #NeverTrump, is sensible; coming from Clinton, is desperation and the smell of flop-sweat.

So pardon me while I feast on their tears.

The best chance for the Republican Party to survive is actually for Hillary Clinton to lose. Once in the White House, Trump will be an awful migraine, but a survivable one for the GOP, since those who swore revenge on #NeverTrump can put down their torches and pitchforks and concentrate on their orange god’s goal to Make America Great Again™.

Given the latest development, it is far more important that Hillary Clinton lose than to keep Trump from winning. That doesn’t mean I’m voting for or offering an endorsement for Trump. It means I wish Clinton to lose. I wished for a deus ex machina, a divine absolution. I may have gotten my wish in the form of a perfect storm for Clinton.

The election is still far from won for Trump, although Glenn Beck says it’s over (and Trump has won). But I think it’s now more close than comfort allows for Clinton. Good. Nate Silver wrote that the odds of a Trump victory are now about equal to a Cubs victory in the World Series. As much as I admire the Cleveland Indians, I will now have to root for the Cubbies (I am a lifelong Red Sox fan, sorry everyone).

It’s not over till it’s over, and this one will definitely (like the World Series) be one for the record books. But if Clinton wins, it will be a criminal record.

*Yes, I’m aware of the irony of Baretta and its star Robert Blake. Blake was famously acquitted of murdering his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley in 2005. He was, however, found liable in civil court of wrongful death. Clinton should have watched more episodes of the show.

About the author

Steve Berman

The old Steve cared about money, prestige, and power. Then Christ found me. All at once things changed. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

I spent 30 years in business. Now I write and edit. But mostly I love. I have a wife and 2 kids and a dog and we live in a little house in central Georgia.